Easy one bowl family chocolate cake recipe

Sometimes you just need a go-to chocolate cake that doesn’t make a huge mess, but still tastes delicious. The kind that is rich and chocolate-y, but not so rich that it makes little ones shudder with its bitterness.

This cake is that sort of cake. It’s easy to make and even easier to eat. You can fancy it up for birthdays or keep it simple, dusted with icing sugar and served with cream and/or berries.

It’s also a perfect cake stall cake, in case that time of the year is rolling around for your family.

We made one larger cake, but you can also use this mix to make TWO 20cm cakes and sandwich them together with frosting or icing or cream.

Easy one bowl family chocolate cake recipe ingredients

Makes one 23 cm cake

• 2 cup of self raising flour
• 175 g of unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups of caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of cocoa
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Method

Step 1. Heat oven to 180°c (350 f). Grease a 23cm cake tin and line with baking paper.

Step 2. Cream butter and sugar until pale. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well combined.

Step 3. Sift cocoa, bicarb and flour together into egg/cream/butter mix.

Step 4. Mix it up a bit – it doesn’t have to be perfect. Then add the sour cream, milk and vanilla.

Step 5. Mix until nicely combined and pour into prepared cake tin.

Step 6. Bake for 40 minutes or until cooked (a skewer or toothpick inserted in the centre will come out clean, rather than having cake mix on it when it’s cooked.) When ready remove from oven and allow your cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before inverting on to a cooling rack.

Ice with your preferred icing and decorate as you like. We used chocolate glacé icing and broken up Flake chocolate bars. You could also ice with pre-prepared icing – such as Betty Crocker frosting.

Chocolate glacé icing: Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat and whisk in 1 cup of sifted icing sugar, 2 tablespoons of sifted cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence and 1 tablespoon of boiling water until smooth. If it’s still quite runny, add more sifted icing sugar and whisk well. You want a thickish icing. When smooth spread on cake immediately. It will ‘set’ on the cake, so add any toppings quickly.